


Expertise

by Penknife



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Genre: F/M, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 17:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17349293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Lando would like to believe he knows how everything works.





	Expertise

Lando is working on fine-tuning the hydraulics in L3's hip, making barely perceptible adjustments while she complains that he hasn't got it right.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think that you just don't want me to stop," he says, with another micrometer tap that he suspects recreates a configuration they've tried repeatedly already.

"Don't flatter yourself," L3 says, propping herself with one hand on the workbench and then putting her foot gingerly to the floor. She doesn't immediately shift her weight off that leg this time, which he decides he's going to count as success.

"I am wounded," Lando says, working on her hip to lock the adjustments he's made into place. "I will never recover from this blow to my masculine ego."

"You're probably perfectly good at sex, but I don't think this rises to that level."

He finds _probably perfectly good_ to be a more deflating estimate of his abilities than _don't flatter yourself_ , but he's not about to admit it. "If only it were possible for me to demonstrate," he says, intending the remark as gallantry. It is more fun that it probably should be to flirt with L3, even when her responses are at least mildly bruising to his masculine ego.

"You think it isn't?"

"I think there are issues of … mutual suitability for the given purpose."

L3 makes a metallic scoffing noise. "I thought you told me you were an expert."

"On droids?" Lando's never claimed that, although he's certainly learning a lot.

"On sex."

"Well, I am an expert on that." Although he might privately be willing to grant that even after several years of practice there may be a few things he still doesn't know. "How would that actually … work?"

"You tell me, you're the expert," she says in that tone that makes him unable to decide whether he adores her or wants to throw her out an airlock. Neither is an appropriate reaction, so he gives the question actual consideration.

"I know there are ways I can touch you that you like," he says. He's discovered that much since she's started letting him work on her. He supposes he's always known that droids could feel pain and discomfort, a safety measure designed to inspire them to avoid accidental damage. It doesn't particularly surprise him that there are things she enjoys—heat, certain kinds of pressure, interesting sensory input. "But I'm pretty sure that nothing you're sporting is designed to register sensation as being erotic."

Even as he says it, he's not sure that's the right way of thinking about it. He knows that for humans, sex is in the brain. It's not all about being touched. And even when it is, the nerves being stimulated send their signals to the brain, and that's where they get interpreted in a very particular way—

"You know that I can program myself," she says, as if she thinks he's slow to catch on.

"And you've programmed yourself to … respond to certain things."

"Wouldn't you?"

He has to admit that he would. He's not entirely sure why she's determined to make him do most of the work of figuring this out. Maybe to prove that he's willing to do that work. Or maybe she just likes talking about sex. Plenty of people do like talking about sex. For that matter, he likes talking about sex, although it doesn't usually feel so much like there are right and wrong answers.

 "What kind of things?" he asks. He's not sure how far he can push this, or how far he should push this; it's possible that line is retreating behind him. But he's curious, and it's hard for him not to ask questions when he's curious. He's also increasingly turned on, which he thinks for an uneasy moment is a little ridiculous, and then can't decide why it ought to be.

"Put your hands where they were before, but higher," she says. "Right at the joint where – yes." He runs his thumbs along metal, and then digs them in to touch wire. "If you do that too hard, it'll hurt."

"I'm aware of that," he says, moving his fingers deliberately gently.

"Keep doing that."

"I will," he says, and then, eventually, "what else?"

She takes his hand and spreads her fingers against his own. This isn't a gesture she uses the way a human would, to seek comfort or connection – as far as he can tell, she's aware that humans use touch to show affection, but it doesn't carry the same emotional weight for her. Her hands have complex sensory receptors for texture and pressure and heat. Interesting sensory input, he thinks, and explores with his fingertips.

"Harder," she says. "There's a spot—" He finds it, and she rolls her shoulders in pleasure. It's surprisingly hard to read her without the cue of flushing skin or quickening breathing, but he thinks she's increasingly enjoying this. He explores for a while longer, and then finds the mechanism of her hips again, traces seams, finds the places where intentional sensory input works together with the variations in electrical current that he can cause by moving wires.

He's getting off on this more than he should. Some part of him knows that sex with droids is the punchline of a dirty joke; it's down-market porn; it's part of a hard thing about the world that he can't change but tries not to take part in, the way that some people use the people they own. But he is never going to own L3, and if he tried to do something she didn't want, she could put him through a wall. The knowledge makes him more turned on, rather than less.

He isn't getting any physical stimulation himself in this position, standing close enough behind her to reach everything he wants to touch but not rubbing up against her. He's all right with that – one thing he does know is that you get no actual points for simultaneous orgasms – but it raises another question. "L3," he says, and he's not sure what his voice is doing, not as steady as he meant for it to be. His breathing is all over the place, his heart racing. "Is there some kind of climax to this, for you?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"So that I can do what you want," he says. It's very much what he wants, something that he enjoys doing to people at least as much as he enjoys the rest of sex. He keeps his fingers moving in a rhythm, slows his breathing, and makes himself wait for the answer. This isn't about him, isn't something he can justify doing if it's ( _mainly_ ) about him.

He's a little alarmed by the voice somewhere in the back of his head that keeps saying _I want, I want, I want_.  He tells himself to take it easy, to be careful with her, and he can do that. But he's shaking, and he hopes she knows that doesn't mean there's something seriously wrong with him, or even that he's upset, it's just that this is _intense_ —

"There can be, if you keep doing that," she says, and it's the answer he wanted, selfishly satisfied to know that he's getting her closer to something. Her hips jerk arrhythmically under his hands, and normally that would be a sign that there's something seriously wrong with _her_ , but under the circumstances, he's going to take that as encouraging. He curls his fingers and rocks them.

"Yes, do that, do that," she demands, and he does it until she goes abruptly still, tensed in an unnatural position for a long moment while he works her with his fingers, works her through it. Then she rolls her shoulders and then her hips, edging away from his hands. "Enough, I'm oversensitive right now."

He feels hypersensitive himself, every nerve screaming for release, and he can't think of a single thing that he can ask her to do that he has any right to ask.

He's abruptly afraid that he shouldn't have started this. His love affairs have been brief, or at best intermittent, and he suspects that may be all he's constitutionally suited for, but this thing they have where they're friends, where he has someone to talk to -- that feels like something he needs.

They're partners, and that's been _working_ , and he's afraid right now he's breaking that. He's possessed by the urge to back away from what suddenly seems like a dangerous drop. He's just not sure he can have that conversation _right now_.

"I need to go have some privacy for a few minutes," he says, because that seems like the safest way to end this. Instead of getting out of his way, L3 reaches out, spreading her hand across his stomach, and he's not sure he can make himself move any muscle to stop her. He is used to being in control, he _likes_ being in control, and right now he's not sure he's in control of anything, either this situation or his own body or his racing thoughts. She moves her hand lower, like now she's exploring. "Baby, if you do that, it'll make a mess," he manages.

"You wouldn't like that?"

"No, I really wouldn't," he says. He really wouldn't. He's not sure, though, whether the thing she's doing is going to work without a layer of cloth between them. Her hands are hard.

He works his trousers open anyway and uses his own hand. She's not getting off on this the way he got off on watching her, but maybe it doesn't have to be about that right now. She gets one hand under his clothes, hard and cool against his skin, and he thinks about where her hard fingers could go if they were slick. He takes a ragged breath, because right now her fingers are somewhere very sensitive, but she's being as gentle as he thinks she can.

 _I want, I want, I want._ He bites his lip for control, because he doesn't, actually, want to ruin his clothes, but he also doesn't want to leave her with a mess to clean up – he doesn't think he gets to do that – so, really, he's back to trying to make that exit –

Except that he doesn't, actually, have the control he wants to have, and the next time he moves, that's it, he's gone. He rides it out and breathes like he's coming up from underwater, like he's been in deeper water than he thought.

When he looks up, she's reaching for a cloth to clean off her hand. "Let me do that," he says, and does it, waiting until he's got her spotless again to straighten his own clothes. It's a more familiar intimacy, something he can bear. 

"I hope you've satisfied your curiosity," she says, and that is a terrible summary for all the things he's feeling right now, some of which don't seem to fit comfortably in his chest. He has never met anyone who messes with his head quite the way she does.

"I think this was educational," he says, keeping his voice light. He's so good at that. "Although I'm not sure I'm entirely ready to call myself an expert." That's still light, but also heading in the wrong direction, back into trouble. He's still shaking from the release of tension, a fine tremor he can't seem to still. Any minute now he will get back in control of this situation.

"That's too bad, because we certainly aren't doing that again," she says. He feels that he should be relieved, as this is essentially what he was planning to say. He can't decide whether he is or not. "Not that I'm complaining. But I don't want to encourage you to get too serious."

"You know that's not generally a problem that I have," he says, leaning back against the workbench nonchalantly. He's not sure how he feels about where they've landed, but at least critique of his personality is more familiar ground, as is banter about which one of them is secretly harboring a passion for the other. They already know that works.

"That's what you say," she says, skepticism written in every line of her mechanical body. There's no outward sign now that they've been doing anything but routine maintenance, except the sweat at the back of his collar.

"At least assume that I'm an expert on me," he says, although right now he doesn't feel like he understands himself very much at all.  

"It would be much simpler if humans came with instruction manuals," L3 says, testing the hip he was working on again. Lando is pretty sure that there is no manual for maintaining hip joints she swapped in years ago from an entirely different model of droid in order to give herself the ability to run, but she seems satisfied with how everything works right now.

"I cannot argue with that one single bit," he says, and turns around to put his tools away.


End file.
